Takemaru Sudō
Takemaru Sudō (崇藤 タケマル, Sudō Takemaru) is a 3rd year student of Yūyami High School. He was chosen by Kirio Imizuka under the alias of ǝnígmǝ to attend the fifth e-test. A powerful and rational man, Sudo has a short temper and is quick to suspect others. He eventually becomes more open to the other players and is even demonstrated to be a natural leader at one point when Sumio Haiba is absent. Appearance Sudo comes across as a tall, muscular and imposing man who wears an unzipped green coat, typically keeping the hood on throughout the series until his talent was revealed. Underneath the coat is a white unbuttoned shirt with another black shirt underneath. He also wears long black pants and black shoes. Underneath his hood, Sudo has messy, light gray hair that pushes behind his forehead with sharp sideburns. On his back is the scar of a single long blade wound extending down the skin on top of his entire spinal cord, which is revealed to have been caused by a knife wound his stepfather inflicted upon him as a child. His two hands are bandaged in a fingerless glove-like fashion. Personality Being one of the oldest and the largest of the players, Sudo is both intelligent and extremely strong, as shown when he lifted a large metal flagpole. He is naturally independent and initially keeps to himself, being one of the more mysterious characters in the group. Despite being generally impatient and solving problems with violence, Sudo acts rationally and frequently puts things in perspective, like when he advised Sumio to not act on emotion when deciding whether to save a trapped Jiro or acquire a password. Another time he demonstrated his rationality was when Ryo initially appeared and he was the only one who strongly voiced suspicion towards him and went as far as to leave the group to avoid being around him; his suspicion of of him is proved correct later on. Sudo hates nothing more than irrationality, a hatred that stems back to his childhood when he was frequently abused by his stepfather and was told to apologize to him for no reason, something he never did. He also strongly dislikes Yuta Kijima, getting angry just from the mention of his name due to an event in the past. He suspected something to be wrong with Kijima long before his true role was revealed during the fifth e-test. Despite being one of the only characters to not have known about their talent (or at least not make use of it in some form, like Sumio. The other being Shigeru Kurumiya) prior to the e-test, he more than made up for it with his strength. History As a kid, Sudo lived with his mother and first stepfather, who had been abusive towards them both after the marriage. He was described as an irrational "dictator" of the household. Once, his stepfather had been drunk and was beating his mother. Sudo got him to stop, but ended up getting slashed across his back with a knife. His stepfather then asked him to apologize to him, an irrational act that caused Sudo to hate the word and idea. In his anger, Sudo never cried or begged towards his father, instead managing to convince his mother to divorce him. He later testified in court against his stepfather for domestic abuse and other crimes. From then on, he gained a strong urge to correct all that was irrational. Later on in life, when Sudo was in high school, he frequently got into fights against deliquents who tried to order him around, something he took strong offense to due to his hate of irrationality. When he was about to be kicked out of school, the school nurse, a woman named Yumikawa Ami, defended him. She was the only one in the school who knew about his scar and history of abuse, and became one of the few people he trusted. It was around that time he met Yuta Kijima, who frequently came to visit Yumikawa in the infirmary that Sudo often resided in due to injuries he acquired from fights. Sudo immediately grew to hate him for two reasons. The first was that Kijima only came to the infirmary because he evidently liked Yumikawa, and the second reason was Kijima's natural expression; something that Sudo claims he felt something "indescribable" from. One day, a student from Yuuyami high was repeatedly stabbed and killed, with the culprit fleeing the scene immediately after. An anonymous eyewitness eventually tipped off the investigators, leading them to a weapon with the culprit's fingerprints. The house the weapon was found in was Yumikawa's, who was immediately arrested. At the scene where she was arrested, Sudo immediately suspected that she had been framed, and angrily grabbed a police officer on the scene, demanding to be allowed to testify. The police claimed that his testimony would objectively contradict the eyewitness's story, and left. Right then, Kijima appeared, revealing he had been the eyewitness. He claimed he made a false testimony to keep Sudo away from Yumikawa because he valued students like him the most; the ones "overflowing with talent." Yumikawa was later prosecuted, and Sudo was suspended for two weeks for being violent with a police officer. He was later forced to repeat his school year once again. From then on, he grew to hate Kijima even more, suspecting him of a hidden agenda (which was later revealed to be the e-tests). Saving Yumikawa became the wish he wanted granted once he was thrust into the fifth e-test. Plot Act 1 Act 2 Talent Reverse Playback (逆再生, Gyaku saisei) The scar on Sudo's back left by his former abusive stepfather can peel off to form a shape resembling a white paper stick figure with quadrilateral ends. Numbered slots manifest on the surface of the object this figure is placed on that determines how much it "rewinds" its actions, essentially retracing things it has done before. Examples of this effect include an affected video rewinding its content, as well as pair of shoes walking backwards to retrace its steps. It is shown that this power can affect a wide range of of objects at once, as demonstrated in chapter 30 when Sudo rewound multiple harpoons back into holes all over the walls in a room that had been rigged by Enigma. Using this power causes significant strain on Sudo's body compared to the other players, most of whom seem unfazed at all when using their powers. Reversely, this talent has an effect on humans; something that Sumio Haiba's Telepathy and Jiro Matsurigi's Cubic Subtraction lack (the former's talent only works on a target if the target allows it). This is demonstrated when Sudo rewound Yuta Kijima's fist as he was about to punch Sumio. Quotes Trivia *Sudo was one of the two players who were not aware they possessed a power prior to the beginning of the e-test; the other being Shigeru Kurumiya. Category:Characters Category:Male